LAX was packed ahead of the holiday weekend, but luck is on my side: We touch down in Atlanta with no delays, the fountain Diet Coke from the airport McDonald’s is perfect, my bags arrive out first from the carousel, and the rental car company upgrades me to a cute little red Jeep just like the one I had when I was sixteen.
There’s a small hiccup in the car rental parking lot: The Jeep, which I’ve decided to name Reba, takes three tries before the engine turns over. But soon, she’s rumbling beneath me. I’m on the road and leaving the outskirts of Atlanta behind me before the ice has melted in my Diet Coke. The road rises and dips through low hills as civilization begins to thin out. Kudzu laces through the pine trees on either side of the highway, and my shoulders begin to relax.
The terrain gets increasingly familiar once I turn off the interstate and roll down my windows, breathing in the fresh Georgia air.I’m in the car all the time in LA, but it doesn’t feel anything like this. I guess it’s hard to get that open-road, freedom feeling when you’re stuck in a death crawl of traffic. Growing up, my car was the first place I could really be alone. I could sing as loudly and as badly as I wanted to. I could speak any problems out loud without having to worry that anyone would overhear. It was a mini sanctuary, and as much as I’m looking forward to seeing my family, I’m also soaking up this time to myself. Just me and Reba. I think I’ll take the scenic route home.
I pass the Methodist church where I grew up going every Wednesday and Sunday, the football stadium where I cheered every Friday night all through high school… oh, and the sporting goods store parking lot, where I went to second base for the first time sophomore year, with my then-boyfriend Calum Hines. He was super cute, but I remember his kisses always tasted like salt-and-vinegar potato chips.
I roll past the sign for the farmstand that always carries my mom’s favorite lavender honey, and think of another one of Mom’s rules: never show up empty-handed.
Reba slows as I pull onto the soft sandy soil in front of Camberton’s Farmstand. It’s July 3, and they are brimming with summer produce. Zucchinis and squash stacked nearly to shoulder height, heirloom tomatoes in a dozen shades of red, yellow, and green, but what I’m really looking for is front and center. Bushels and bushels of fresh freestone peaches.
I grab a basket of them and a jar of honey and tip them onto the counter.
The woman smiles at me and squints her eyes. “Are you Bill and Joan’s little girl?”
“I am.”
After we exchange the usual pleasantries, the woman, who’s told me to call her Katie Mae, says, “You look just like your mom.” I’ve been hearing that my whole life. My mom and I are near carbon copies of each other except for our eyes. Hers are hazel, but I have my dad’s dark blue color. “Will y’all make it to the parade tomorrow?” she asks.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” The Fourth of July parade used to be my favorite town event. The rotary club puts it on, and the whole town comes out for it. Lake Thomas’s lone firetruck leads the parade, followed by the mayor in a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible and the county sheriff in his patrol car. All the high school sports teams have floats, and the teenagers throw Tootsie Rolls and beaded necklaces down to the kids who line the parade route. Actually, throwing free food is kind of a major part of the parade. The local fried chicken shop throws biscuits. The town’s two real estate agents always try to outdo each other. One year, they both threw full-size candy bars.
Even after I left home for college and life in LA, I tried to come home every summer for the Fourth. It’s only been in recent years that I’ve been too busy. I’m glad to be back, and I can’t wait to take my niece and nephew tomorrow.
I’m about to head back to the rental car when my eye catches on the field out behind the farmstand.
Rows and rows of zinnias. Hot pink and bright orange. Sunshine-yellow and deep crimson.Southern dahlias, my mother always calls them. My mom can force almost anything out of the soil of her garden. But by the end of the summer, the only flowers still bobbing lush and full in the breeze off the lake are her zinnias.
Looking back to the farmstand, I see several five-gallon buckets filled with flowers, sitting below a MAKEYOUROWNBOUQUETsign. Pale pink cosmos, some early white sunflowers, globes of purple Gomphrena, and of course, zinnias.
“Katie Mae,” I call to her, nodding at the buckets, “I’m going to grab one more thing.”
A truck with Alabama plates and an Auburn University War Eagle decal on the back window pulls up while I start to pull together a bouquet. A guy about my age steps out, beelines to the spread of tomatoes, and starts piling several into his arms.
I turn back to my flowers, selecting a zinnia, but it’s too orange, so I put it back and grab another. I repeat the process with a yarrow that’s a little too red.
“Looks like serious work.”
I turn to see the guy at the tomato stand, now nodding toward my bouquet. Dark blond curls peek out from beneath his faded red ball cap. His eyes are a gorgeous shade of blue, like the lake in the sun, and
for a moment I’m so captivated by their sparkle that it takes me a second to realize he’s cradling about two dozen tomatoes in his arms. He’s got on gray shorts and one of those SPF hoodies with a hole in the sleeve to hook your thumb through. It’s a splotchy blue pattern that I can only describe as “fish camo.” He looks like he’s been out on the lake for most of the day: sunburned, scruffy in a way that shouldn’t be attractive, but is. I’ve swiped left on plenty of dudes hoisting a caught bass in their profile pictures. But this guy, with his golden, toned calves and strong-looking hands, doesn’t look like a cliché. He looks… real.
And also kind ofhot.
“Sorry?” I ask. I’ve already forgotten whatever he just said.
“Picking out the flowers,” he clarifies. “Seems like you’ve got it down to a science.”
If the same words had come out of Taylor F.’s mouth—or really, any of the revolving door of guys I’ve dated in the last few years—I’dhave expected an undercurrent of sarcasm. But the look on Tomato Guy’s face is open and genuine.
“It needs to be matching, but not matchy, you know?” I place another spray of cosmos into the bouquet, the perfect shade of bubblegum-pink.
“Oh, totally.” He bobbles a large striped tomato but manages to catch it before it hits the ground. He locks eyes with me, flashing a wide smile as if to say,Did you see that?One of his incisors crooks inward, and I can’t help but smile back. No veneers for this guy. Katie Mae walks over with an empty basket and hands it to him.
I feel like the sheer number of tomatoes this guy is accumulating has to be addressed. “That’s a lot of tomatoes.”
“Nothing better than tomatoes in summertime.” He places them into the basket and begins to add even more.
“You’re not wrong.” I hold the bouquet up and rotate it to make sure it isn’t missing anything.
